High-pitched choppy audio over vrdp on Windows 10

[virt_user_2]

Hi.

I've got three computers. One of them is a headless linux server (Ubuntu 14.04 64bit) running virtualbox 5.0.10 r104061 with the latest extension pack installed. It runs a Linux Mint 17.2 64bit guest with the latest guest additions installed. The guest has been configured to enable remote display with no authentication, not to allow multiple connections, audio enabled, host audio driver: pulseaudio, audio controller: ICH AC97.

My second machine is a desktop running Ubuntu 14.04 64bit. When I connect to the guest os using "rdesktop -r sound:local server_ip:port" and try to playback audio, I hear the audio from the guest just fine. It appears that audio running on the guest over vrdp is working.

When I pause the audio from my second machine, close rdesktop, wait about a minute, then connect to the linux guest from my third machine (a windows 10 laptop), and resume audio playback, the sound is choppy on the windows 10 laptop.

All of the machines are connected using a wired gigabit ethernet connection. Network bandwidth is not the issue.

The windows 10 laptop can playback HD video with audio from other applications ok. The problem seems to be caused by the Microsoft remote desktop client built in to windows 10. There don't seem to be any alternative clients.

I've tried modifying the guest audio settings (on the host), but have had no luck. I've found that null audio driver + any controller = no audio over rdp, pulse audio + intel hd = virtual machine no longer starts up, pulse audio + sound blaster = no audio over rdp.

I've also tried changing the bit depth and sample rate in the advanced speaker properties of the sound control panel on the windows 10 laptop. The sound quality remained the same.

I did search the forums (googled restricted to this site for the terms audio windows 10) before posting. The closest match to my problem seems to be /viewtopic.php?f=2&t=69820 (me = noobie can't post urls). avsfxm10 proposed the workaround of having the guest os provide the remote desktop service and then exposing that port through NAT. That won't work in my case because my guest os, linux mint, doesn't have a rdp server built in.

I'm sorry about posting this here (since host=guest=linux), but since the issue seems to be specific to windows, I thought that posting here made the most sense.

Does audio over remote desktop work for any windows 10 users? Does anyone have any ideas about how to fix it?

Thanks.